


Empty

by Flikky



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flikky/pseuds/Flikky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Leslie Thompkins ponders her feelings about Bruce taking on a protege.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Doctor Leslie Thompkins had known Bruce Wayne for many years. Since before his parents had died; before he’d withdrawn within himself; before he’d become The Batman. Doctor Leslie Thompkins had watched Bruce Wayne grow from a curious little baby to a curious toddler to an excitable and inquisitive young boy. Doctor Leslie Thompkins had watched that excitable and inquisitive young boy turn overnight into a sad and lonely young man and then she’d watched him grow and learn and train himself to become the man known as The Batman.

She’d seen what it had cost little Bruce Wayne to become the man he’d become determined to be on the night that Thomas and Martha Wayne had died. But she’d also seen what it cost him every night to be that man.

Leslie had stopped counting the number of times Alfred had had to drag Batman into her clinic, bleeding or broken or, more often, both. Every time he came in limping or half-conscious and every time she lectured him about being more careful, not taking so many risks, remembering that his life was just as important as the people he was trying to save. But of course he never listened.

In fact, what had ended up doing the most good was the only other thing Leslie had fiercely disagreed with Bruce about: His sidekick.

Of course he couldn’t have imagined that Leslie would approve of him taking another emotionally distraught young boy and dragging him into the life that Bruce had chosen for himself, and she never did stop frowning disapprovingly at Batman every time he brought the latest Robin in with another broken rib.

But what she did eventually start noticing, was the growing infrequency with which either one of them ended up on her examining table. She didn’t want to admit that it might actually do Bruce some good having an underaged boy (or girl) out there with him. But the periods of time during which he didn’t have Robin — during which her supply of bandages and splints was significantly depleted — only ended up proving it to her.

Doctor Leslie Thompkins couldn’t assume like Bruce could that, without his help and guidance, any one of those boys and girls would be out there without training or backup. But what she did know was that, thanks to them, her examining room was empty of men in capes a lot more often.


	2. Emptiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A companion piece to the first chapter. Alfred contemplating the impact Dick's had on Bruce's life.

To say that Wayne Manor had died the day that Thomas and Martha Wayne had wasn’t the exaggeration that Alfred Pennyworth wished it was. The day that Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed in Crime Alley was the day that Wayne Manor’s population dropped to one lonely young boy, his butler, and the echoes of his tragic past.

Alfred did his best by his young ward, kept up the grounds, raised the boy as his father would have wanted, while maintaining his station, made sure that Bruce was kept informed about his father’s company, saw to his education. But one thing he could never do was chase away those echoes; fill the manor with more than the suffering of a young man.

But for all of the love and care he gave to Bruce over the years, it took a young boy in equal emotional turmoil; a young boy with an indomitable spirit, a quick smile, and the ability to shine even in his darkest hours; a young boy who would remind Alfred’s own ward of his humanity; a young boy who would inspire others and draw them back to this place in turn. It took that once desperately lonely and sad young boy, now a man, finding his own son to finally bring Wayne Manor back to life.


End file.
